


Holding Back

by Mangokiwitropicalswirl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s03e17 Pusher, Season 3, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10591491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangokiwitropicalswirl/pseuds/Mangokiwitropicalswirl
Summary: A Post-Pusher one-shot, rated R.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Happy Birthday present for @thethirstisoutthere on Tumblr, and dedicated to the awesome ladies of the X Files Rewatch chat – you guys are the gems of this fandom, and the only thing that keeps me coming back to this madness. Hugs!

The first nightmare is the one she knew she’d have.

Everything slows as she watches the silver cylinder rotate, the slug slipping into the chamber, Mulder’s crooked finger straining against the trigger, trying to resist the force of Modell’s control. Her mouth forming itself into a scream as the motes of gunpowder exhale from the barrel. In the dream, her eyes slam shut an instant before she looks toward Mulder’s lifeless body slumped in the chair, a bright bloom of his blood spattered against the blue hospital wall. She doesn’t see it, but she does.

In the dark in her bed, her eyes jolt open and the scream she began in the dream startles her awake. All she hears is her own voice wailing “MULDER NO!” and the gallop of her heart as she untwists her hands from the sweat-soaked sheets and fumbles for the light. Throwing the sheets back, she steadies her breathing as she swings her legs over the side of the bed, her hands gripping the side of the mattress. It still feels like everything is moving in slow motion, as if the ground has tilted like a ship and she’ll slide off any minute, tumbling into the nothingness.

Scully stands up and walks dazed to the kitchen, pulling a small glass down from the cupboard and filling it with cool water. She counts the swallows as she feels it snaking down her throat. 

She wants to call him. It’s 3 a.m. but she knows he’s awake. They had left the hospital silently, their hands still intertwined, oblivious to the presumptuous stares of the officers who’d watched them go, her long coat swishing as she navigated them both to the rental car. Mulder was dazed and pensive as she opened the passenger door for him and he slowly angled himself in.

Settling herself in to drive home, Scully opened her mouth to say… something. But her throat was chalky, and nothing sounded right as she mulled thoughts over in her head. “Mulder, I forgive you,” only made it sound like he had something to be sorry for. “Mulder, it’s not your fault,” would make him feel powerless, and God knows he’d felt enough of that for a lifetime. 

And there were other thoughts, the kind she never gave words to, the kind she hoped her small hands had communicated more than once this exhausting day. The curve of her hands into the crook of his as he’d handed her his gun, staring up at her as he knelt on the ground before her, a macabre facsimile of a proposal. Proposing what? “Hey Scully, I propose we don’t both die today, ‘k? Here’s my promise ring - a cool Sig Sauer. With this gun, I thee wed.”

Her hand in his at Modell’s bedside had been her yes. “Do you, Dana, take this troubled, gaunt-eyed man to be yours, lawfully?” “I do,” her hands had said as she gripped his fingers and told him they shouldn’t let Modell take up another minute of their time. Theirs.

Maybe Mulder had felt what she’d meant, maybe not. But either way, neither of them said a single word on the long drive home. She had dropped him at his apartment, and he’d raised his head to meet her gaze, one long leg already out the door of the car. He had paused, mouth half open, as his eyes searched her face. “Thanks for the ride,” he croaked out as his eyes dropped. He quickly slid out of the car and didn’t look back. Scully had reached out a worried hand for him as he went, meaning to press a reassuring caress along his arm, but all she’d caught was the hem of his coat before he pulled away.

She drove home through a blur of tears.

Now in the yellow haze of the sink light, she unearths her cell phone from beneath a tangle of keys, report copies and a folded slip of paper that Agent Brophy had passed to her as they'd set up the hospital surveillance van. She'd tucked it into her pocket with a slight raise of her eyebrow. Unfolding it now, it’s seven scrawled digits. His phone number. 

She sighs and sets the number aside, flipping open her phone. She’s still staring at the dark screen, her finger poised over the speed dial when the sharp ring startles her. 

“Hey,” she answers knowingly.

There’s quiet on the other end. She hears him swallow and take a long breath.

“I would have done it, Scully.” 

His voice is hollow. 

“No, you couldn’t -- “

“I would have done it.” He cuts her off. She takes a deep breath and waits for him to elaborate. Would have shot her? Would have shot himself? The latter was obvious. She gulps.

“Scully.” Mulder pauses. “I think you should transfer to another unit.”

“What?!” She stands upright against the counter, indignation suddenly overriding her sympathy. “What are you talking about?”

“I think you should put in for a transfer,” he repeats without comment.

“I most certainly will not be putting in for a transfer, Mulder!” She exclaims. “What has gotten into you?”

She hears him sigh, deep and long. She can see him slumped in his white t-shirt against the shiny dark leather of his couch, hovering in the light of the fish-tank between his own brilliance and madness. All she hears in his voice now is resignation, and something else he’s unwilling to explain.

“Scully,” his voice is a whisper, “I would have done it. I would have shot you. I would not have…”. She hears what sounds like a swallowed sob. “I would not have been able to forgive myself.”

Her indignation vanishes as quickly as it had risen. “Mulder,” she is soothing now. “You have to let this go. This kind of thing happens. To us. All the time.” 

“Not this kind of thing.” He counters. “Not the kind of thing where I’m forced to point a gun at you. Not the kind of thing where I could lose you like that.” He goes quiet, letting the weight of it settle on both of them.

After a long minute of silence, she whispers back, “Mulder, I’m not transferring.” She thinks she hears a nod and a sniffle. “Besides, you’re not the only one with something to lose, you know?”

“What does that mean?” Mulder asks.

“To me, it seems I almost lost you today too,” she flushes with residual panic, remembering the lack of hesitation he’d shown in pointing the gun at his own head, the crisp click of the hammer against gunmetal echoing as a reminder of his own self-loathing. She wants to ask him if he thinks so little of himself, if he cares so little for her that he wouldn’t even give a thought to leaving her behind. That’s not fair, she chides herself, he couldn’t have thought of much of anything the way Modell had possessed his mind. But he’d thought long enough to give her the chance to disrupt him, to pull the alarm that freed them both from the taut game Modell had ensnared them in. For her, for her life, he had put up a fight.

On the other end of the line, Mulder is still quiet. “Scully, I --”. He stops himself short before trying again. “I hope you know --.” He goes quiet. Scully thinks she can hear the gurgle of his fish tank in the background, there’s not even a breath between them.

“I know.” She whispers back, even more quietly than before. “You should get some sleep,” she reminds him at normal volume after the moment passes.

“Don’t I wish,” he sighs. “Goodnight Scully.”

“Goodnight Mulder.”

 

The second dream falls into the category of things she hasn’t yet put words to. There is no sound between them other than the huff of his breath on the back of her neck as his bare, lean body cradles around behind hers. She is naked in his arms, her head turned back toward his as he nuzzles her cheek. In a vision of them together that her conscious mind would never dare entertain, their legs are entangled, his broad arm travels up and down the expanse of her torso and tenderly cups her breasts. 

In the terrain of her dream, a forbidden ache settles between her thighs and she tips her head further towards his and captures his mouth. As his tongue explores hers, his hand slips down in between her legs and she shivers. He groans in response to the wetness he finds there, and he spreads her thighs gently as he settles his erection in the groove of her ass. Scully whimpers -- she thinks the sounds of her arousal might be crossing the plain of the dream into the space of her daytime room -- and opens her mouth for a deeper kiss. Mulder pushes into her, a slow, pulsing thrust until there is no space and nothing between them. 

She tries to turn and see him at the moment of penetration, but he is burying his head in her shoulder, quiveringly tense with his holding back. He grips her more tightly and kisses her neck as they begin to move together. The slow burning at her core spirals and quickens and Scully wakes up panting, tingling with a brief embarrassment at the intensity of her response.

It’s not until later she realizes, even in her own dream, he can’t face her.


End file.
